IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/bas/econst/y2022i2p95-114.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Relative Attraction of Cities and Inter-City Migration – An Analysis Using the Gravity Setup

Author

Listed:
  • Munazah Nazeer
  • Uzma Tabassum

Abstract

The study provides both descriptive as well as regression analysis explaining the relative dominance of one city (urban area) over another to attract migrants from other cities. The empirical analysis reveals that the relative size of the informal sector in a city and the magnitude of the flow of foreign direct investment towards these cities foster in-migration. Empirical assessment is based on two estimation techniques, the Generalised Method of Moments (GMM) and Tobit regression analysis. The techniques examine migration patterns across 14 major cities focusing over a time period of 7 years (2005-2006 to 2012-2013). It is found that the labour market variables (expected wages, employment, and unemployment rate) and regional economic contribution have a strong significant influence on inter-city migration flows. Distance, as suggested by the gravity model, and years of education, reflecting human capital, have a significant positive impact on migration flows across urban-urban (cities) regions. Further positive and negative amenities attached to the region significantly influence migration flows towards these areas, supporting theories of location. Migration is an equilibrating response to existing disparities and disequilibrium among regions and across cities. The concentration of economic activities generates employment opportunities, which are a strong driver of migration and development of the region. The study proposed that the government should opt for horizontal urbanisation rather than vertical urbanisation pattern. Hence, if the government wants to target the development of various regions, it should divert economic activities towards the targeted region and cities.

Suggested Citation

  • Munazah Nazeer & Uzma Tabassum, 2022. "Relative Attraction of Cities and Inter-City Migration – An Analysis Using the Gravity Setup," Economic Studies journal, Bulgarian Academy of Sciences - Economic Research Institute, issue 2, pages 95-114.
    • Handle: RePEc:bas:econst:y:2022:i:2:p:95-114
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.iki.bas.bg/Journals/EconomicStudies/2022/2022-2/5_Munazah-Nazeer.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Barnum, H N & Sabot, R H, 1977. "Education, Employment Probabilities and Rural-Urban Migration in Tanzania," Oxford Bulletin of Economics and Statistics, Department of Economics, University of Oxford, vol. 39(2), pages 109-126, May.
    2. Arellano, Manuel & Bover, Olympia, 1995. "Another look at the instrumental variable estimation of error-components models," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 68(1), pages 29-51, July.
    3. Gary S. Becker, 1962. "Investment in Human Capital: A Theoretical Analysis," NBER Chapters, in: Investment in Human Beings, pages 9-49, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    4. Henderson, J V, 1974. "The Sizes and Types of Cities," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 64(4), pages 640-656, September.
    5. Todaro, Michael P, 1969. "A Model for Labor Migration and Urban Unemployment in Less Developed Countries," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 59(1), pages 138-148, March.
    6. Larry A. Sjaastad, 1970. "The Costs and Returns of Human Migration," Palgrave Macmillan Books, in: Harry W. Richardson (ed.), Regional Economics, chapter 9, pages 115-133, Palgrave Macmillan.
    7. Zhang, Kevin Honglin & Song, Shunfeng, 2003. "Rural-urban migration and urbanization in China: Evidence from time-series and cross-section analyses," China Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 14(4), pages 386-400.
    8. Munazah NAZEER* & Uzma TABASSUM** & Shaista ALAM***, 2017. "Banking And Telecommunication Influencing Migration In Major Cities Of Pakistan," Pakistan Journal of Applied Economics, Applied Economics Research Centre, vol. 27(1), pages 101-120.
    9. Yuri Andrienko & Sergei Guriev, 2003. "Determinants of Interregional Mobility in Russia: Evidence from Panel Data," William Davidson Institute Working Papers Series 551, William Davidson Institute at the University of Michigan.
    10. McDonald, John F & Moffitt, Robert A, 1980. "The Uses of Tobit Analysis," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 62(2), pages 318-321, May.
    11. Bhaskar Dutta & Tridip Ray & E Somanathan (ed.), 2009. "New and Enduring Themes in Development Economics," World Scientific Books, World Scientific Publishing Co. Pte. Ltd., number 7207, January.
    12. Ludo Peeters, 2012. "Gravity And Spatial Structure: The Case Of Interstate Migration In Mexico," Journal of Regional Science, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 52(5), pages 819-856, December.
    13. Daniela BUNEA, 2012. "Modern Gravity Models of Internal Migration. The Case of Romania," Theoretical and Applied Economics, Asociatia Generala a Economistilor din Romania - AGER, vol. 0(4(569)), pages 127-144, April.
    14. Pissarides, Christopher A & Wadsworth, Jonathan, 1989. "Unemployment and the Inter-regional Mobility of Labour," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 99(397), pages 739-755, September.
    15. Schwartz, Aba, 1973. "Interpreting the Effect of Distance on Migration," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 81(5), pages 1153-1169, Sept.-Oct.
    16. Cole, William E & Sanders, Richard D, 1985. "Internal Migration and Urban Employment in the Third World," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 75(3), pages 481-494, June.
    17. Yap, Lorene Y. L., 1977. "The attraction of cities : A review of the migration literature," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 4(3), pages 239-264, September.
    18. Ali GÖKHAN & Alpay FILIZTEKIN, 2008. "The Determinants of Internal Migration In Turkey," EcoMod2008 23800044, EcoMod.
    19. Manuel Arellano & Stephen Bond, 1991. "Some Tests of Specification for Panel Data: Monte Carlo Evidence and an Application to Employment Equations," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 58(2), pages 277-297.
    20. Harris, John R & Todaro, Michael P, 1970. "Migration, Unemployment & Development: A Two-Sector Analysis," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 60(1), pages 126-142, March.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Lall, Somik V. & Selod, Harris & Shalizi, Zmarak, 2006. "Rural-urban migration in developing countries : a survey of theoretical predictions and empirical findings," Policy Research Working Paper Series 3915, The World Bank.
    2. Andrés Rodríguez-Pose & Tobias D. Ketterer, 2012. "Do Local Amenities Affect The Appeal Of Regions In Europe For Migrants?," Journal of Regional Science, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 52(4), pages 535-561, October.
    3. Mitze, Timo & Reinkowski, Janina, 2010. "Testing the Validity of the Neoclassical Migration Model: Overall and Age-Group Specific Estimation Results for German Spatial Planning Regions," MPRA Paper 23616, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    4. Seidu, Ayuba & Onel, Gulcan & Moss, Charles Britt, 2018. "Impact of International Remittance on Out-Farm Labor Migration in Developing Countries: A Dynamic Panel Data Analysis," 2018 Annual Meeting, February 2-6, 2018, Jacksonville, Florida 266531, Southern Agricultural Economics Association.
    5. Ather Maqsood Ahmed & Ismail Sirageldin, 1993. "Socio-economic Determinants of Labour Mobility in Pakistan," The Pakistan Development Review, Pakistan Institute of Development Economics, vol. 32(2), pages 139-157.
    6. Fredrik Carlsen & Kåre Johansen & Knut RØed, 2006. "Wage Formation, Regional Migration and Local Labour Market Tightness," Oxford Bulletin of Economics and Statistics, Department of Economics, University of Oxford, vol. 68(4), pages 423-444, August.
    7. Yamauchi, Futoshi, 2003. "Are experience and schooling complementary?," FCND briefs 166, International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI).
    8. Hagen-Zanker, Jessica, 2010. "Modest expectations: Causes and effects of migration on migrant households in source countries," MPRA Paper 29507, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    9. Pekkala, Sari, 2002. "Regional growth centres - the most attractive location in Finland?," ERSA conference papers ersa02p087, European Regional Science Association.
    10. Kanbur, Ravi & Christiaensen, Luc & De Weerdt, Joachim, 2017. "Cities, Towns, and Poverty: Migration Equilibrium and Income Distribution in a Todaro-type Model with Multiple Destinations," CEPR Discussion Papers 11994, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    11. Brücker, Herbert & Siliverstovs, Boriss, 2006. "Estimating and forecasting European migration : methods, problems and results," Zeitschrift für ArbeitsmarktForschung - Journal for Labour Market Research, Institut für Arbeitsmarkt- und Berufsforschung (IAB), Nürnberg [Institute for Employment Research, Nuremberg, Germany], vol. 39(1), pages 35-56.
    12. Andrés Rodríguez-Pose & Tobias Ketterer, 2015. "Do we follow the money? The drivers of migration across regions in the EU," REGION, European Regional Science Association, vol. 2, pages 27-45.
    13. Guifu Chen & Shigeyuki Hamori, 2009. "Solution to the Dilemma of the Migrant Labor Shortage and the Rural Labor Surplus in China," China & World Economy, Institute of World Economics and Politics, Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, vol. 17(4), pages 53-71, July.
    14. Emily Rauscher & Byeongdon Oh, 2021. "Going Places: Effects of Early U.S. Compulsory Schooling Laws on Internal Migration," Population Research and Policy Review, Springer;Southern Demographic Association (SDA), vol. 40(2), pages 255-283, April.
    15. Meyer, Susanne, 2003. "Sozialausgaben der OECD-Staaten: Ein Pull-Effekt der Migration?," Darmstadt Discussion Papers in Economics 124, Darmstadt University of Technology, Department of Law and Economics.
    16. Giray Gozgor & Baris Kablamaci, 2015. "What happened to urbanization in the globalization era? An empirical examination for poor emerging countries," The Annals of Regional Science, Springer;Western Regional Science Association, vol. 55(2), pages 533-553, December.
    17. Mahreen Mahmud & Tareena Musaddiq & Farah Said, 2010. "Internal Migration Patterns in Pakistan—The Case for Fiscal Decentralisation," The Pakistan Development Review, Pakistan Institute of Development Economics, vol. 49(4), pages 593-607.
    18. Brücker, Herbert & Siliverstovs, Boriss, 2006. "Estimating and forecasting European migration : methods, problems and results," Zeitschrift für ArbeitsmarktForschung - Journal for Labour Market Research, Institut für Arbeitsmarkt- und Berufsforschung (IAB), Nürnberg [Institute for Employment Research, Nuremberg, Germany], vol. 39(1), pages 35-56.
    19. Jens Ruhose, 2015. "Microeconometric Analyses on Economic Consequences of Selective Migration," ifo Beiträge zur Wirtschaftsforschung, ifo Institute - Leibniz Institute for Economic Research at the University of Munich, number 61.
    20. Meyer, Susanne, 2003. "Sozialausgaben in OECD-Staaten: Ein Pull-Effekt der Migration?," Publications of Darmstadt Technical University, Institute for Business Studies (BWL) 37303, Darmstadt Technical University, Department of Business Administration, Economics and Law, Institute for Business Studies (BWL).

    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • J61 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Mobility, Unemployment, Vacancies, and Immigrant Workers - - - Geographic Labor Mobility; Immigrant Workers
    • J68 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Mobility, Unemployment, Vacancies, and Immigrant Workers - - - Public Policy
    • R12 - Urban, Rural, Regional, Real Estate, and Transportation Economics - - General Regional Economics - - - Size and Spatial Distributions of Regional Economic Activity; Interregional Trade (economic geography)

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:bas:econst:y:2022:i:2:p:95-114. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Diana Dimitrova (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/ikbasbg.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.